Pace of the paddle

The end of May Long and the start of Days Off mercifully overlapped for a day.  Understandably bagged out from fourteen day of transitioning from a Lady of Leisure back to a Wage Earning Sucker, I embraced a half day of lazy paddling with friends over the weekend.  

Dan strapped the Clipper to the Civic while friends Shaun and Angie successfully navigated us to Half Moon Lake, 45 minutes northeast of Chetwynd, with The Mink atop their outfit.  

We spotted the lake ages before we actually reached it along a south facing ridge.  The launch clearly visible, the dirt path through the aspen eventually delivered us there.  Sheltered from the little wind blowing, the birding was spectacular.  

Kingfishers, swans, red wing blackbirds and ducks sailed, hunted and flew around us as we glided through their homes.  An owl called from the woods while a cow moose and calf scurried up the slope to safety.  

Shaun and Angie leading the way 

 View from the ridge

Canoe-head Shaun 

View from the launch.  

We spotted the cow moose and her calf on that side slope

Dan and I  

 Swans sure make a racket when taking off!

Shaun and Angie leading us along the shoreline 

Lepidoptera eggies 

Hole in the Wall

Skunked the previous day from finding Hole in the Wall Provincial Park(link), my work partner and I grabbed GPS coordinates and a detailed description of the road’s bends from a supervisor and set off to slalom through coal, logging and other quad-laden pickups down the Sukunka Forest Service Road. 

 
Straight stretch, bend, culvert. Ah hah! Throwing our pickup into park, we leaped out and bounded up the now-obvious and admittedly well-trodden trail with cameras and empty water bottles in hand to the spring at the base of a blue-gray rock wall. Lush vegetation surrounded the feature as spring water bubbled up from underground caves. 

 
Devil’s club tickled our bums, moss covered rocks threatened to send us swimming, the sheer size and volume of water was overwhelming as we stooped to fill any empty vessels we could find in our truck. 

Established in 2000 and unfortunate victim of BC Parks, Hole in the Wall’s resurgence spring emerging from a limestone wall is not signposted aside from a well-hidden, faded, brown Provincial Park Boundary sign kilometres and kilometres ahead of the 40 meter trail at 50.5 kilometer off the potholed Sukunka, a mere 25 kilometer drive south of Chetwynd, British Columbia on Highway 29. 

 

As summer plans are being solidified, consider a visit to B.C.’s Peace. Dinosaurs, waterfalls taller than Niagara, outstanding hiking, superb fishing and hunting, and hidden, hard-to-reach-but-worth-the-effort gems like Hole in the Wall are waiting.

Bust this tomato soup!

Keen creator of soups, I was curious when I stumbled upon this recipe my roommate uses as part of her Yeast Busters diet.  I added half an onion, approximately 1.5 teaspoon of chili flakes and blended everything after 30 minutes on the stove on medium heat using an immersion handblender.  Highly recommend.